


Penthouse

by Sheffield



Series: Bagpipe [2]
Category: The Sentinel (TV), The X-Files
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 08:34:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16114745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheffield/pseuds/Sheffield
Summary: In Bagpipe, Jim and Blair encountered Alex Krychek. In Penthouse, he comes back. In unexpected ways. (Warning: seriously violent and non-con)





	Penthouse

**Author's Note:**

> I *knew* I had written a sequel to Bagpipe! Eternal thanks to Star Watcher who rescued a whole bunch of my stories from the wreck of geocities. I will post them as and when I can.
> 
> Disclaimer: The Sentinel and the X Files and their characters are copyrighted and all copyrights and trademarks are acknowledged. This is fanfic only. Other characters are invented characters and no identification with anyone living or dead is intended or should be inferred.

Well, fuck, you didn’t think I was *dead*, did you?

It just wasn’t acceptable: Walter shooting me, Mulder and Scully living happily ever after with bay-bee in nuclear family heaven? Puh-lease! But I fixed it. It took some doing, I’ll give you that. And persuading the poor fucker that he was me, not some unkillable alien, was painful - yeah, right, for him; so what? But I sorted it.

So now there are two of me.

Which is fine.

Really.

Except, well, there was this thing. After we’d done the number on him - drugs, electroshock, hypnosis, some new stuff with a computer download - we sent him off to do his thing with Mulder. And then, when it was done, we picked up the "body". The computer download thing was supposed to work both ways. They plugged us in and it swooshed into my head and, wow, it was like I was actually there, watching Walter point the gun at my face and fire. I'd never work again: send the disposable, unkillable, off to do my dirty work, and then upload how it felt afterwards. All the fun and none of the downsides! Ha! But we had a little problem with the cleanup. After I’d killed the scientist guys and the admin staff and the muscle, well, clone-boy had this spasm and we finished up hand to hand and we, well, we knocked each other out. Woke up around the same time, face to face on the laboratory floor.

And now there’s no way to be sure which one I am.

Because he has my memories, see? And I have his. Up to the point he woke up on the lab floor. Or I did. We both did.

Yes, we could find out. Put a bullet in each of our heads, and the one that wakes up isn’t real. Not an acceptable ending either. Kind of changes the power dynamic. We can live with it. It’s lots of fun, having a brother.

***

We tossed for who got which. Still not sure whether I won or lost. But it wasn’t difficult. He opened the door on the chain, just like the last time, and I blew the hinges, maced him, and had him cuffed, gagged, hooded and nailed into the crate before the neighbours had decided whether or not it was a suspicious noise.

Wheeled the crate down to the truck and drove off.

***

We tossed for who got which. Still not sure whether I won or lost. But there wasn’t anything difficult about it. He was at the station and came running when he heard what my other half had done. The first he knew I was there was when he opened the door of his truck and I leaned out and stuck my gun in his ear.

"Your senses are *so* out of whack," I said, still kind of surprised he was so easy. "Pay attention if you want him to live."

And then I showed him the picture my double had emailed me. Of little Bambi Blair.

***

There's a big difference between breaking in a pet when you've got a dozen guys at your disposal and all the resources of the Consortium at your command, and restraining a hostage when you're just a one-armed guy equipped with household implements.

I'd rented an empty storey in an office building. Psychologically, people expect to find prisoners held in cellars, dungeons. No-one bothers to look in through the windows of a penthouse.

While I had him unconscious I did the housekeeping stuff: stripped him and disposed of his clothes first, obviously - not only for the phsychological feeling of vulnerability it would give him, but for the entertainment value. Oh, and it would kill Ellison when he started getting the emails.

Then, regretfully, I had to do something about those baby blues. Those big ol' Bambi eyes were too expressive; and he was too smart. If I let him see, he'd work out what was going on in a minute. So I carefully taped his eyes shut, with pieces of tape top to bottom. Then covered his eyes laterally with two more strips. I knew he would have to be there a few days and I wouldn't be with him all the time, so I had to be sure he wouldn't wriggle free quickly, so then I made sure his hair was tied back neatly, and started wrapping his head in more surgical tape, so that he wouldn't be able to regain his sight without pulling out half his hair and most of his eyelashes, poor baby. It wasn't pretty when it was done, so I used a piece of black cloth as a blindfold over the top. Yes. Much better.

I fastened his wrists together behind him, and then thoughtfully used the rest of my rope to lace his arms together firmly from wrist to elbow. He would be too uncomfortable to wiggle free... and I planned to keep him too busy to plan...

His ankles I shackled with a spreader bar - again, good fun to watch, and something that would wind Ken-doll up no end. The only building work I'd done was to install a good solid anchor point in the centre of the floor, and the final touch was to chain him down with a six foot chain from the bolt to the spreader bar.

Then I laid him out on the cushions and waited for him to wake up.

***

"You lay a hand on him and you're a dead man."

Oooh, big scary. I laughed and gestured for Ellison to get in, put him behind the wheel. I relieved him of his piece - oh, and the spare. And watch, wallet, keys. Then I gave him back the truck key and said mildly, "Drive."

So he drove.

"You're the guy. Right? The one from last year. With Alex."

I couldn't think what he was talking about for a moment, but then I remembered. Oh yeah. CJ. Crazy Jane Doe. So her real name had been Alex. I'd forgotten.

"Yeah, I'm the guy." The guy who raped your partner, buddy boy. Kept him naked and shivering in a concrete cell, strapped him over a hurdle with that cute fuzzy little butt in the air, and then when I got bored enough, took him to my room and fucked his brains out.

I grinned at him.

"So I guess you should be glad it's me here with you, huh?"

***

"Just a hostage. Calm down. You're just a hostage, this time."

The minute he had felt my hand - yes, that one - on his face, he had gone into a panic attack like I'd never seen before. He thrashed around and started screaming and trying to bite and kick till I wound up lying on top of him with my hands over his mouth and his whole body flattened under me. When I'd got him still and quiet I repeated it.

"Calm down, OK. You're just a hostage. Nothing's going to happen to you. Provided Ellison does what we want. No noise, now."

I cautiously took my hand away and he started yelling for help again. I put my hand, my real hand, over his mouth and nose until he was out cold and then went to the toybox. I'd brought half a dozen different types of gag with me, just for the hell of it. Now, which one would look prettiest on him?

***

"Just do as I say and he'll be all right," I said carelessly. This was usually the moment they blustered or, worse, begged. But Ken Doll just looked at me and said steadily "If you touch him, I'll hurt you. If you hurt him I'll kill you."

I couldn't resist. "And if I kill him?" I asked. But Ken Doll looked at me steadily. And then he smiled.

"Don't." he said.

Not begging, not threatening.

Warning.

I was entirely charmed.

***

So here we are then, I thought. I had nothing to do now but wait; watch the hostage and email digital pictures of him every now and then. I had anticipated... well, you know. I hadn't packed a spreader bar because I wanted to teach him ballet, you know? But now that I had him, there was something faintly disturbing going on. Because I didn't want to. You know? He was spread out for my delectation like an all you can eat buffet, And yet, when I had told him, you're just a hostage, I hadn't been lying.

And suddenly I was scared to death. Because I remembered, remembered vividly, wanting him. And now I didn't. And, you have to ask yourself, what had changed?

***

"He's a cute little thing, isn't he?" I said, showing him the latest email. My other half had spread him out like an all you can eat buffet, naked, blindfold, legs stretched wide. I remembered the feel of him, under my hand, and grinned at the memory, watching Ken-doll get all hot under the collar at the sight. The surveillance team had been irritatingly inconclusive about whether Bambi and Ken were doing the nasty or not, but in the end it didn't matter. More fool Ken.

"Turn around," I ordered. He let me cuff him, placid as you please, but there was enough tension in those arms to bend girders. I ran my hands over his shoulder muscles and said softly "Calm down. Everyone does as they're told, and no-one has to get hurt. It would be a waste..."

He didn't relax under my hand, but he didn't tense up either. He ... endured me, like I was an Act of God or something. I wondered if I had time. Keep your mind on the business at hand, I told myself. But I couldn't help speculating...

***

Shoot the hostage.

Damn all heroes. But, shoot the hostage, is ingrained in me. I could no more prevent myself than I could stop the damned busybodies from finding us in the first place. But at least I managed to pull the shot at the last minute and plug him in the shoulder instead of the head. And then I put the black guy down with one in the gut, and by that time I'd worked out there were only the two of them, so Mr Armani didn't even take a bullet, just a good solid pistolwhipping. Damn all heroes.

Time to go.

I unclipped the chain that held Bambi's ankle spreader to the floor and then took off the spreader bar altogether. The bullet had gone straight through his shoulder and the bleeding wasn't too bad. Good thing I'd used a really big, solid cockgag or else his screaming would have brought the place down. I had some happy juice in my kit and I gave him a quick shot and then when he quietened down, tripping happily and drooling, checked on the black guy. He needed a medic and fast, but that might work for me. Mr Armani was his partner, I figured. I checked their pockets, confiscated two guns each, a couple of badges, two cellphones and a police radio. Mr Armani's name was Rafe and the other one was Brown.

"Brown will be dead in about half an hour, I'm guessing."

Rafe's eyes shot open and then he realised that hard round thing between his teeth was the end of the barrel of the gun I'd hit him with, and he subsided wisely.

"So you do exactly what I say and I'll let you call 911 and leave the line open. Maybe they'll trace it in time. What do you say?"

He looked at me with that pure, burning hate that warms you right down to your toes; the way Mulder looks at me sometimes. I sighed. And he nodded, fractionally, not risking my taking it for resistance.

"Pick up Bambi. Fireman's carry, over your shoulder. Right now."

He hated it. He knew Bambi, and didn't want to put his hands on him while the boy was naked. Well tough. And cute. This just might turn out to be fun after all.

"That way." There were fire stairs, of course. What, you didn't think I'd have organised a back door? But I played fair. I used one of their phones, dialled 911, and left it next to Brown's body. Maybe they'd find him in time. What kind of bozoes come after someone like me without backup? Stupid bozos, that's who.

I made Rafe carry Bambi up two storeys and then in through the fire door. I'd set this place up three years ago - I forget why. A routine Consortium job. They wanted a place to stash something or other. Who remembers? A hostage, a lab, a cash hoard. They used to just buy up businesses and close them down, leave the empty shell. The wrinkle I thought up, well, it was brilliant, if I say so myself. I would take the manager out to a construction site and lay it all out for him. Choice one: hold up the foundations where no-one will ever find you. Choice two: deposit a thousand bucks a month in this account here and stay breathing. Mostly they thought they were working for the Mafia - usually they were well enough motivated that they kept paying. And paying. And paying. I had near on fifty of them still going - yeah, some went bust, sure, but then fifty per cent of all small businesses go belly-up in the first year. Mine were better motivated than most, and so long as they contributed fifty payments or so before the money dried up I never made much of a point of going back after them. You'd be surprised how big a couple of them have grown over the years; and a couple of them have carefully increased their payments proportionately as their turnover has gone up. I have one computer company that pays nigh-on half a million a year. Hell, how did you think I funded my lifestyle now I'm independent? Knocking over 7-11s?

Anyway, two floors above little Bambi's prison there was a perfectly legit copy shop and print works, with a handy crawlspace perfectly adapted for keeping a prisoner. I admit I had only envisaged stashing Bambi there in an emergency, but adding Armani-boy into the mix was just going to make it all the sweeter.

Rafe went to put Bambi down but I gestured warningly with the gun. He opened his mouth to speak and I went "Ah ah ah!" threateningly. He stood still, warming himself with that pure righteous hatred. Maybe Mulder was a cousin or something.

I opened up the crawlspace. It was coffin sized, ample for one, cozy but just about plausible for two. He looked at me imploringly. God, he was cute. Did Big Eyes almost as well as Bambi.

"Lie down. On your back. And don't put Bambi down. He'll be lying on top of you."

I made him get down into the hole, hampered by his burden from making any slick moves. Eventually he was arranged on his back, with Bambi lying across his chest drooling and out of it.

That wasn't quite the effect I wanted. Bambi was lying on his back too, his bound arms against Rafe's chest.

"Turn him over," I said implacably. I wanted to see Bambi's fuzzy little butt, and I wanted Rafe to feel Bambi's naked groin against him.

Just because, all right? You take your entertainment where you can get it. It took a while, and I watched them both like a hawk, but in the end I had them arranged how I wanted them. Rafe was on his back, hampered by the smallness of the space, feet and head and shoulders touching the edges of their coffin. And Bambi Blair lay naked on top of him, forehead tucked neatly under his Rafe's chin so they could both breathe, but otherwise they were toe to toe, knee to knee, chest to chest. Bambi's arms were still tightly bound behind him, wrist to elbow, and I made Rafe put his hands under Blair's armpits and then clasp them together behind Bambi's back. And then I cuffed Rafe, checked Bambi was still hopped up on happy juice, drooling contentedly around his gag and breathing easily. Said "Stay very, very quiet."

And nailed the lid down.

***

Something had gone wrong, because I wasn't getting email. But then Ken doll didn't know the schedule, so he was still with the program. I took him out of the truck and into the hotel kitchens. No-one was around, and I navigated him through to the storeage room I'd identified. There was a chair - for me - and a table - for the tape deck - and a cold hard concrete floor for Ken doll.

I sat down, sat back, and made him kneel down, hands cuffed behind him, on the side of the room furthest from the door.

"There's a meeting going on upstairs. Don't bother with the stuff about Sentinels - we both know what you are, what you can do. You're going to focus on the meeting and repeat what they're saying. When it's taped, I'll leave you here. And Bambi goes free."

He perked up, bless him, and we had a few sensible questions about the meeting - who was there, how was he to identify it, what were they talking about. I answered some, enough to let him know how to identify the players, but not enough to identify the topic. I was the topic. Or, at least, Consortium clean-up and I had my suspicions what that was going to mean. But I needed to be sure.

Yes, I was enjoying myself, but I wasn't doing all this for fun you know.

***

"Blair? Blair? Oh god, kid, don't be dead. Can you hear me?"

I should have run, I suppose. It would have been the sensible thing to do. Ken doll would do it, Bambi was an irrelevance, Armani-boy a positive menace. I should have walked quietly out into the copy shop and said hi to my employees and then walked quietly out of the building with the rest of the staff when fat guy's buddies did all their running around and panicking.

But somehow I couldn't resist.

Bambi was still gagged, of course, and he made this mewing sound that I had no trouble interpreting as a muffled "Jim!" So sweet.

Rafe was trying to comfort him - or keep him quiet, I suppose - and gibbering on about how everything would be OK and there was nothing to worry about and I found myself spellbound.

Which was, kind of, my mistake.

But Rafe was working away and seemed to have managed, somehow, to unbuckle Bambi's gag and unstopper him, and I couldn't walk away at that point. Bambi was tripping, and Rafe was trying to talk him down, and he was begging for Jim and completely spaced out about where he was and the darkness and why he couldn't move, and Rafe kept trying to keep him calm and keep him quiet. I visualised him, in the dark, imagining me listening in and putting a bullet through the floor into them both.

***

I don't know what to do. I'm pacing the cell as if they were right, as if I actually am what they tell me. I don't know what happened. I mean, in my head, I know. But they tell me what's in my head doesn't correspond with objective reality, and that therefore I'm mad, and that's why I'm here.

What?

Oh. Yes. What I think... what I feel... happened, is that Ken doll turned the tables on me and I wound up in a squad car. But then what happened to my other half? And why am I still here.

I've been passing the time... and there's so much time... scratching at the hand, compulsively. And, a while ago, a thumbnail caught a flap of the plastic "skin"... and the whole prosthetic peeled off.

And, underneath, there's a real hand.

White, shrivelled, disgusting. But the fingers flex, and if you bite hard on the pads of the fingers you feel pain, and draw blood, so I'm guessing it's a real hand.

Which means I must be the Other One.

Which means I'm unkillable, so how long do you think I'm going to sit here in a cell?

Except, well, here's the thing. They came to see me today. Kell doll and little Bambi. Both of them, together. Like I was an exhibit in a zoo, like Ken doll was showing Bambi there were no real monsters, and the tigers were all in cages, safely de-fanged.

And they talked - mostly to each other, I think, but Bambi talked a bit to me, too. I listened, mostly. Only, with those baby blues untaped, Bambi was quite certain. That I'm not him. And they were both certain. That there was only, ever, one of me.

And there's the thing.

Are they just messing with my head? That's what I want to believe. And Alex knows by now exactly who and where I am, and when he needs me for another caper he'll come and collect me and it'll be just like before.

But they're all so certain. How else did they find Bambi, they ask me, if Ken doll didn't escape and follow me from messing with his head to messing with Bambi and Armani-boy's" I've seen the FBI file, and I've seen a mirror, and I see why they tell me I'm not him.

If I'm not him, though, then who am I?

And then I smile, because I get it. I really get it, now, at last. That if I'm not him, then I'm me, and I can be anyone I want me to be. And I bite down harder on the pads of the shrivelled up white hand, and before I break the guard's neck and use his keys to blow this joint, I take a moment to use the pretty red liquid to write on the plain white walls. A farewell. And a message. One that Bambi and Ken will be sure to understand.

"Who am I now?"


End file.
